This study aims to spotlight the postmodern tendency of metafiction in Ian Watson’s novel “Chekhov's Journey”. Metafiction is self-conscious in relation to language, literary form, and storytelling in fiction. This form of fiction accentuates its construct and reminds the readers to be aware of a fictional work. Ian Watson is a noteworthy science-fiction writer, and his famous novels

are ‘The Embedding’ (1973) and ‘The Jonah Kit’ (1975), which brought him prestigious awards, while in this study we will focus on his metafictional work ‘Chekhov’s Journey’. This novel exhibits the subject of postmodern metafiction. In this novel, a modern-day actor uses hypnosis to simulate Anton Chekhov's 1890 journey through Siberia. The method of study adopted the metafiction theories proposed by Patricia Waugh and Linda Hutcheon. It highlights Ian Watson’s texts that represent the elements of metafiction through the protagonists. Using various theories related to postmodern metafiction, the view of metafiction in the work is substantiated and explored. The postmodern perspective of metafiction is explored in Ian Watson’s text and analyzed with metafiction theories. The study results are compared and discussed with other studies and contemporary texts concerning metafiction. The findings show that metafiction is applicable in the given work of Ian Watson. He projects the aspects of metafiction in his work through his writing, especially narration, both fiction and reality.

Fiction, metafiction, postmodern

Barth, John ‘The Literature of Replenishment: Postmodernist Fiction’. Atlantic Monthly (1980.June). Pp.66

Butler, Martin, and Jens Martin Gurr. "The poetics and politics of metafiction: Reading paul auster's travels in the scriptorium." English Studies 89.2 (2008): 195-209.

Currie, M. (2014). Metafiction.London Routledge.

Currie, M. (1998). Postmodern narrative theory. Springer.

Currie, M. (2013). The invention of deconstruction. Springer

Farinella, P.; Foschini, L.; Froeschlé, Ch.; Gonczi, R.; Jopek, T. J.; Longo, G.; Michel, P. (October 2001). "Probable asteroidal origin of the Tunguska Cosmic Body". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 377 (3): 1081–1097.

Federman, Raymond. Critifiction: Postmodern Essays. New York: New York Press, 1993.

Hutcheon, Linda 1989. The Poetics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge.

Hutcheon, Linda. Narcissistic narrative: the metafictional paradox. 1991. Publisher: Routledge.

Hutcheon, L. (2014). Narcissistic narrative: The metafictional paradox. Wilfred Laurier University Press.

Langford, Dave (April 1983). "Critical Mass". White Dwarf. No. 40. Games Workshop.

Masemola, Michael Kgomotso. "African cultural memory in Fred Khumalo’s Touch My Blood and its metafictional para-texts." Journal of Black Studies 52.2 (2021): 103-122.

Pandeeswari, D., A. Hariharasudan, and Ahdi Hassan. "The pragmatic study of metafiction in Preeti Shenoy’s ‘The Secret Wish List’and ‘It Happens for A Reason’." Studies in English Language and Education 9.3 (2022): 1348-1363.

Pynchon, T. (1997). Mason & Dixon. Henry Holt and Company.

Rawlinson J; Quick Look at Non-linear Narrative.” 2004

Rushdie S; “In Good Faith” (1990). Imaginary Homelands. London:Granta Books,1991.

Watson, Ian. Chekhov’s Journey, First Carroll & Graf edition, 1989

Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding.London: Chatto & Windus, 1974.

Shenoy, P. (2012). The secret wish list. Westland Publications Limited.

Shenoy, P. (2014). It happens for a reason. Westland Publications Private Limited